Archive for June, 2014

Carl Creighton played a solo show at Sidewalk last Saturday – the first in some time – as part of Dan Penta’s Cockroach Presents event.

As a large, piano-playing melancholy singer/songwriter, Creighton was once quite the Sidewalk troubadour. Not sure what’s kept him away. It might be his regular trips to Minnesota, where he once was from, or it might be his band Howth.

Whatever the reason, it’s always a pleasure to have some of the old guard coming back around. This night also included appearances from Deep Sound Diver and DJ Adequate, who was all that – and more!

A variety of old school beats will be dropped at Sidewalk tomorrow (which is Sunday):

Lee Feldman and Daniel Harnett share an hour at 7pm. Feldman played regularly in the early nineties, doing a piano based pop ballad thing before he grew a family and lost hair. Still with all his hair, Harnett was a regular at the club a few years later. Clearly, they found each other in hopeless place, and will combine their musical majesties, if only for an hour.

Afterwards, Turner Cody, a turn-of-the-century AntiFolker, will open for Sam James, who is one of The Wowz and an AntiFolker of similar vintage.

It’s all a lot of talent on what you’d think would be a pretty quiet night. Check it OUT!

New Sidewalk favorites Meet the Patients have their second show at the club this week.

If you want to steal a taste of what you might here, “Klepto” can be heard online, thanks to the people at ReverbNation. Check it out. It’s at eleven o’clock tonight, so if you’re anxious about the show… be patient.

Part of the exciting bill last night at Sidewalk was High Teen Boogie (acoustic), a duo version of the Japanese surf-rock sheroes. They turned the place into a place where people could win, place or show. It was something.

You can catch the show on Gander, of course, but you can also hear some recordings over here.

Tomorrow night, Sally Mason will continue her tour from way over in Manchester, England England. She’s hitting the Sidewalk stage at 9:30pm, right before High Teen Boogie. I’m not really sure what she’s singing about (she hit the open stage on Monday, but she was talking all foreign, you know?), but it sounded cool.

If you’re into international sounds, maybe you’ll get into Sally Mason.

Most of the acts on the bill tonight (Tuesday, June 24, 2014 CE) were at the Open Stage last night (Monday, June 23, 2014 CE) to play and promote their shows tonight (Tuesday… etc.)

April Sun played two of her funner songs on acoustic guitar, sans backing tracks. Not so many of her cohorts for the Beat Invasion, starting at nine. Miss Represent started with a piano song, but went into her more frequent electro-nuts style with “Dirty Princess.”

Loose Lid stood on stage and sang over beats, and Touching You (Touching You has a gig at the Sidewalk? Good God!) ranted for three minutes, sang “Death is the Answer” and something else, and ranted for what felt like another seventy five minutes.

Sara Hartman, who’s starting the evening at seven o’clock, bucked the trend and played real songs on a real live guitar (in retrospect, the math adds up to two and a half acts playing with backing tracks and two and a half playing with live instrumentation. Still, that’s a lot more recordings that the Sidewalk audience is used to).

Monday night, while Ben Krieger was off somewhere with his kids, Ronnie Wheeler of Red Gretchen brought his kid to the club. Brandon Wheeler will debut his hip-hop skillz as Au-Ralphy to the East Coast this Saturday, June 21, in the latest AH Presents.

Wheeler Senior will play with the venerable Red Gretchen.

Anne Husick, who both puts on AH Presents events and also plays with Red Gretchen, will lead her band Granny as well. You know who else is in Granny? Ronnie Wheeler.A whole lot of that family showing up on the bill.

Could this end up being an eighteen Wheeler? We’ll have to see on Saturday…

Storytellers series continues apace, this time with Linda Draper in the catbird seat.

“I do not eat catbirds,” Ms. Draper neglected to say in anticipation of this show. Is this evidence of her dining preferences? We at the Sidewalk blog do not feel it is our place to ask.

Celebrties such as Linda Draper should be allowed to follow their own, independent muses in peace, and not have to worry about their audeinces’ opinions about wjhat they eat and what they don’t – so long as the bacon gets fried.

And you can take that to the bank!

Oh, also, you can go to Ms. Draper’s show tonight, and hear her talk about how she wrote some of her songs.

The Monday Open Stage is brought to you tonight not by regular host, Benjamin Q Krieger, but rather, soundman extraordinaire Bob Q Black, who will provide funny anecdotes about growing up with a first name as embarrasing as Bob.

It will be a laugh and a half.

Expect things to be a little different. Whenever somebody unfamiliar with running an open mic does so, the results are fascinating.

Will he make the entire night mandatory three-songs apiece? Will he insist on multiple rock blocks, or ask that everyone cover Jacques Briel? Only time – and history – will tell.